According to US ICE, Jerry Wang, 34- year old CEO of Herguan University and the University of East-West Medicine is charged with “conspiracy to commit visa fraud; use of false documents; aggravated identity theft; and unauthorized access to government computers.” Majority of 450 students at Herguan are from India. Any guess, how these students were recruited?

In this vulnerable stage, US still seemed to be in a better shape as compared to other destinations because some of the traffic from Australia and the UK was expected to redirect to the US. However, Herguan may pose serious threat to Indian students headed to the US. There have already been reports of higher denials of visa by American embassies as seen in student discussion forums, and Herguan will make things tougher.

Visa related frauds which use education as pathways for immigration are an evidence of insatiable appetite for “foreign degrees” at any cost–fraud is accepted as fair by many and it is being propelled by technological sophistication.

In a recent article, Corruption in International Higher Education, Phil Altbach asserted “The first step in solving a major challenge to higher education internationalisation is recognition of the problem itself.” Unfortunately, many do not want to recognize the problem and few others continue to fuel it.